I have to agree in principle that the punishment for a crime should not be based on what a person was thinking when they committed the act. But in reality, we accept that hate crimes should be subject to more severe punishment than impersonal assaults.
In this case, it is not unreasonable to say that the purpose may be to differentiate between a person who vandalizes a building under construction by stealing copper wire out of the walls to buy drugs, from someone who is part of a group intent on vandalizing a power substation in a plan to bring down the power grid.
Really, if you read the law carefully, there is nothing in there that would prohibit legal protest. There is no mention of protest at all. Purely trespassing remains a misdemeanor, and even so the law is crafted to ensure that covered forms of trespassing are intentional, with the language about the facility being “completely enclosed” with barriers or signs.
It really comes down to the idea that many here believe that they should be able to shut down pipelines, power stations, and communication networks whenever they feel the political call to do so. Most people believe that activists should absolutely be prevented from doing those things.
Framing the argument as being about crushing political protest is disingenuous. It does make a more appealing argument than if you argued honestly that it restricts your ability to organize attacks on the power grid. Especially a power grid that could possibly disrupted without inconveniencing people in SF or Portland.
Using the art of google-fu, it appears that lawmakers in NY and CA are also calling for better protection of “critical infrastructure”, partly in response to the 2014 San Jose power substation attack.
